In a 1950s conversation with her dear friend Ernest Hemingway, Marlene Dietrich asked his advice about a problem. She had been invited to perform at a Miami nightclub but was not sure she wanted to accept it. It was a lucrative offer, she explained, but her heart was simply not in it. When she thought of turning it down, though, she wondered if she was just "pampering" herself. Her explanation was met with a moment of silence, after which Hemingway said, "Don't do what you sincerely don't want to do." And then he added:
Hemingway's words immediately cleared up any doubts that Dietrich was having about the decision. But it was her comment about his advice that has been remembered to history: "In those five words he gave me a whole philosophy."
There are periods in life when we are especially receptive to the influence of others. During these times--often called teachable moments--a handful of words can dramatically impact our lives. And when it comes to words that command attention, nothing can beat those that are phrased according to the figure of speech known as dehortatio, which Willard R. Espy once crisply defined as "dissuasive advice given with authority."
Technically, Hemingway offered Dietrich a dehortation, a rarely used but quite proper English term (compared to an exhortation, which attempts to persuade people to do something, a dehortation is an attempt to dissuade people from a course of action). Here's another example, this one written more than 2,500 years ago by the Greek writer Euripides:
For more than twenty-five years, I've had my own pet term for this kind of cautionary advice, and I have compiled nearly 2,000 examples in my new book Neverisms: A Quotation Lover's Guide to Things You Should Never Do, Never Say, or Never Forget (HarperCollins, 2011). Here are a bunch more, along with a thought or two about each one.
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"just stop doing it"
let every sanitation worker just up and quit - they can find another job so easy!
He lived a simple life.
1. How old do you think I am?
2. G-d helps those who help themselves.
3. Oh, you got a haircut.... (then, silence).
4. Dear G-d, Change me.
5. He's in a better place.
Those more fortunate, like the doc, don't quite get how real the need for a job is to people who are having a problem getting one. I've been there. Now I can be picky. Once upon a time - due to a dependence on eating and sleeping in doors - I had to grab things that I knew were going to be lousy but paid the bills. It is hard to tell a kid that he or she has to go to bed hungry because you don't want to violate a "never"
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I think the 'never' one could stick to in this case would be the one where you choose to take a undesirable job rather than do something criminal (more criminal than shoplifting a can of soup, or package of sandwich meat when you're broke and hungry).
I have been pretty broke a few a few times in my life. but there were lines I simply could not cross. But I have to acknowledge that no matter how bad it got for me or my family, it never became the kind of desperate that too many people face regularly.
I wish the personal fulfillment posts on this site too the need for a sliding scale into account. what is true for a person who owns their home outright and has a solid 401K is different for the working poor or even someone who has had much of their wealth erased due to an illness in the family.